Strained relations: fears of a man-made flu pandemic

Strained relations: fears of a man-made flu pandemic

The risk of a man-made pandemic has startled virologists and epidemiologists to the extent that two papers on the subject were once deemed too dangerous to publish

Kawaoka is one of a small number of researchers tinkering with the genomes of bird-flu strains to model how they might acquire human pandemic potential. Many fear these hubristic microbiologists might trigger a man-made plague if the synthetic bugs ever escape from their laboratories.